The Barbecue Smoker That Can Grill Your Steak

I’ve cooked smoky barbecue using just about every setup imaginable, from a kettle grill burning charcoal and wood to a barrel-style smoker that ignites wood pellets. The truth is, I can cook a nice brisket in a barbecue smoker, but these cookers often lack the raw BTUs needed to sear up steaks. Turning your grill into a smoker can work, if I fuss with it consistently to keep the temperature just right.

I wanted the ability to cook real barbecue without it consuming the entire day with the flexibility to grill burgers and dogs come summer. The answer: The Monolith BBQ Guru Edition, but this kind of flexibility doesn’t come cheap. Expect to pay about $1,400 for the premium setup I tested, which might be worth it to not have to babysit your pork butt or to store two pieces of gear (the Monolith starts at around $1,160).

The Monolith is a kamado-style cooker that tackles barbecue two ways: a heavy, ceramic vessel that holds low temperatures for hours and the brains of a computer-controlled fan to increase or decrease the charcoal fire's heat.

Before I hooked up the BBQ Guru computer controller, I tried grilling the basics, including burgers, sausages, and chicken parts. Filled with charcoal and configured for direct heat, the Monolith’s 18-inch diameter grill grate functions just like a charcoal kettle. I put nice sear marks on quick-cooking burgers, like you’d expect on a trusty Weber. Indirect grilling requires a little more effort to position the grill deflector, but it works well and didn’t dry out my chicken or sausage.

3 Rules for Ultimate Grilled Sausage:

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Onto the main event: the BBQ Guru control, which is the brains of the system. Once plugged in (I had to move the rig within a few feet of an outlet, be within my WiFi network) and attached to the fan that’s already installed on the cooker, the BBQ Guru gave me remote access to my smoking session. Once started and online, I could adjust temperatures and receive alerts while running errands, but I could just as easily have been at the office or inside powering through the last few episodes of The Walking Dead.

Here’s where the high cost is worth it for the time or skill strapped: It gave me part of my weekend back. The fan ramps up or down, feeding more (or less) oxygen into the firebox, keeping food cooking within two degrees of my target temperature of 225 degrees Fahrenheit. Thermocouples wire back to the computer telling it the ambient temperature inside the cooker, and it can accommodate other probes to mind my pork, brisket, and ribs at the same time.

When loaded with about six pounds of charcoal (and wood for smoke), the Monolith can go autopilot for more than 24 hours. I started a pork butt at 8 p.m. and let it go all night. By lunch the next day, heat and smoke transformed the pork butt into pulled pork, and it didn’t take much effort after the initial setup.

The Monolith gives diehards an easier way to make barbecue without having to constantly adjust vents or add in more fuel, but the same cooker also gets hot enough to sear steaks and other quick-cooking food, which is not something most traditional smokers do well. Manufacturers have tried to reach this holy grail of backyard cooking, but most fail—they either don’t get hot enough to grill or don’t have the build quality to hold onto low temperatures easily. The Monolith is the first cooker I’ve seen that does both. One change: a more streamlined interface instead of accessing the temperatures through a clunky website, which can be difficult from a small smartphone screen.

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